Note 119 — THE CASTLE OF ROCHESTER.

The following occurrence, as mentioned by the same historian, shows the force upon which King John had calculated in addition to the powerful army with which he actually beleaguered the castle:—“Here is to be remembred, that whilest the siege laie thus at Rochester, Hugh de Boues, a valiant knight, but full of pride and arrogancie, a Frenchman borne, but banished out of his countrie, came down to Calice with an huge number of men of warre and souldiers to come to the aid of King John. But as he was upon the sea with all his people, meaning to land at Dover, by a sudden tempest which rose at that instant, the said Hugh with all his companie was drowned by shipwracke. Soone after the bodie of the same Hugh, with the carcases of other innumerable both of men, women, and children, were found not farre from Yermouth, and all along that coast. There were of them in alle fortie thousand, as saith Matthew Paris; for of all those which he brought with him, there was (as it is said) not one man left alive.

“The king (as the same went, but how true I know not) had given by charter vnto the said Hugh de Boues the whole countrie of Northfolke, so that he ment to have expelled the old inhabitants, and to have peopled it with strangers. But whether this was so or not, sure it is that he was verie sorowfull for the losse of this succor and aid which thus perished in the seas, though it happened verie well for his subiects of England, that should have been sore oppressed by such multitude of strangers, which for the most part must needs have lived upon the countrie, to the utter undooing of the inhabitants wheresoever they should have come.”